Cotton College to Cotton State University – Upgradation or Degradation (Part 1)

By- Biswajit Chakrabarty | Date- July 29, 2011

In the state assembly elections, an extremely important bill for the education sector of Assam was passed without any discussion. The bill was about upgrading one of the milestones of education of the state, Cotton College into a university. The unfortunate part was that none of the present or past teachers of Cotton College had a chance to have a look at this bill before it was accepted in the assembly; nor did they have a chance to give any advice or suggestion for the sake of Cotton College. Similarly, no present or past student of the College had a chance to give any opinion and their take on the bill before it was introduced in the assembly.

No respect or courtesy shown by the Education Minister to his ex-teachers of Cotton College

Did Tarun Gogoi Government, or in true words,- does Education Minister Himanta Minister believe that he knows much more than his teachers of Cotton College as to what should be best done to raise the honor and glory of the historical college? He did not even consider any need to take the opinion of his fellow mates or the Student’s Body of the college of which he himself was a part during his student days. We are not trying to question Dr. Himanta Biswa Sharma’s good intentions in the matter, but his lack of goodwill and courtesy has forced us to believe that he lacks maturity. In addition, this also itself points us to the direction where we see the quality of education in Cotton College degrading day by day. Most of the students passing of the college nowadays are seen to be displaying an I don’t care attitude, for which their mentors (teachers) has to take responsibility for.

“What Cottonian thinks today, Assam thinks tomorrow”,- those who believe in this saying and if there is any truth in it, then it should not be difficult to understand what the glorious history of Cotton College actuals means to the upcoming leaders of Assam.

Complete Failure of the Opposition to address the issue

At the same time, we are really shocked to see that the opposition, who has got a chance to represent the people in spite of the strong rule of the Congress, has completely failed to address this issue. It is the duty of the opposition to point out mistakes of the Government. If they lack the basic skill or understanding required to review in details such an important bill that affects a historical educational institute, they could have even advised to have it reviewed by the educational fraternity consisting of noted intellectuals, so that any drawbacks could be highlighted and corrected. However the opposition completely failed in this. Would they continue to show more failures like this? Or would they change?

Anyway, the bill has been passed in the Assembly and soon would become active once it gets effective after the Governor approves it. As an initial reaction, the current Cotton College Student Union as well as Teachers Association welcomed the bill; honorable Principle welcomed it too. As a retired teacher of the college and with several rounds of interaction with past and present teachers and students, we feel that however noble the idea of the Cotton college State University bill may be, a logical analysis only proves that it will destroy Cotton College and all its associated glory, forever.

 To be continued…

Writer Biswajit Chakrabarty is a retired professor of Cotton College.

Translated by Priyankan Goswami from the writer’s original article in Assamese with his kind permission.